.BNPPARIBAS

Enhancing security and trust with .BNPPARIBAS

The French international banking group BNP Paribas has been a high profile adopter of its dot brand. It was one of the first banks to switch its focus completely from its legacy TLD registrations (.fr, .net and .com) to its new dot brand extension. Today, if you enter BNPPARIBAS.COM into your browser, it automatically diverts you to the group’s main corporate site GROUP.BNPPARIBAS. Its eight million retail banking customers are similarly diverted to MABANQUE.BNPPARIBAS (“my bank”), a fully functioning and secure online banking service, and the bank’s flagship URL.

Use case in brief

Initiatives: Personalised customer service and improved security through MABANQUE.BNPPARIBAS

Main models of use: Client facing, full migration, transactional

Key benefits: Improved CX/UX, additional security

Download Use Case PDF

Improving online security for customers

As BNP Paribas explained in a case study for ICANN in 2018, one of the key reasons behind its move was the “additional security benefits” that the dot brand delivers for online customers, adding:

“As an international bank, servicing millions of customers and businesses, .BNPPARIBAS provides an additional layer of security that our customers rely on. A .BNPPARIBAS website and web pages give customers additional peace of mind while conducting business with an international bank even at a local level, helping BNP Paribas Group to deliver on [its] brand promise of transparency and trust.”

From a customer experience perspective, the new URL also supports the banking group’s wider digital and business goals to strengthen its brand and grow customer loyalty. It also helps that it’s an easy-to-remember URL.

"BNP Paribas has effectively used its dot brand TLD to enhance security and consider trust..."

Becoming a leader in digital innovation

As it also set out in the case study and its original ICANN application, BNP Paribas has a “goal to serve as a leader in sustainable business and digital innovation”. In practice, this means using “its own online domain in the expanding Domain Name System (DNS) to build a secure network of websites that adapt to the needs of the business – from creating a corporate site to campaign specific websites for their various initiatives.”

BNP Paribas has put this strategy into practice by launching not only its GROUP and MABANQUE.BNPPARIBAS sites, but through the launch of a series of websites related to specific services or products, which serve specific markets or regions. This includes APITSTORE.BNPPARIBAS for technical teams; FOCUSMAGAZINE.BNPPARIBAS, an online magazine for corporate clients; WEALTHMANAGEMENT.BNPPARIBAS; and even WEARETENNIS.BNPPARIBAS, a dedicated portal to celebrate it’s sponsorship of professional tennis.

Education of consumers

Importantly, the bank has taken time to support its business units and educate its consumers, so as to ensure a “seamless transition” and “no interruption to service”. It achieved this by taking simple but necessary steps, such as ensuring the new URLs are reflected in all relevant materials “so as to elevate awareness of the new TLD”. It also put the security benefits of its migration front and centre in its advertising and customer education campaigns (as pictured below).